


Last Call

by beautifultoastdream



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Bittersweet, Character banter, Characters grown old, EDI is geth den mother, Gen, Hinted Control ending, Male-Female Friendship, Mourning, Peaceful character death, Post-Game, hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 20:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14119728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifultoastdream/pseuds/beautifultoastdream
Summary: Decades after the end of the Reaper War, an old turian is dying. A visitor from his past comes for one last talk, seeking a reassurance that she was never programmed to require. Ruminations on mortality, the soul, and the Mass Effect version of the Oxfordian hypothesis. Gen.





	Last Call

The sun is rising on the last day of Garrus Vakarian's life.

Not that anyone says that out loud, of course. The nurses all smile and assure him that everything's going to be just fine; the doctors are annoyingly optimistic. It's no secret that the nurses are all asari and geth and the doctors are all salarian because turian medics, treating turian patients, would have a much harder time lying about things. Good old subvocals.

There were times past when Garrus would have shot someone for lying to him. Now, he doesn't really mind it. If it makes them happy to lie to him about this, where's the harm? Hell, he's practically being charitable.

The family's hanging around somewhere nearby. The nieces and nephews were in to see him yesterday—okay, grand-nieces-and-nephews, and there might even be a few great-grands in there, but they all just call him “uncle” and he's okay with that.

(Father's old fears about the Vakarian name losing prominence were definitely unfounded. Solana married a frigate captain and had _four_ kids, and those kids had kids, and now there's at least a dozen junior Vakarians climbing the ladders at various organizations across the galaxy and all having kids of their own. And Spirits help the galaxy, in Garrus's opinion.)

The family was cheerful too, when they visited. Full of news about who's doing this and what's been on the extranet and what everyone's going to do when he gets out of the hospital. Garrus played along, because a kind word never hurt anyone and he's already written and filed his will so it's not like anything's going to change now. He loves them all, as loud and opinionated and damp-eyed optimistic as they are, and it would be a—as a pilot he once knew would have said—”dick move” to sit up in bed and say “I'm a hundred and fifty-seven years old, I'm blind in one eye, and I can't walk, so stop pretending we're all going to the beach next week, you idiots.” Even if he does think it.

He's still grateful for the visits, though. He's old and tired, but living is a hard habit to give up. As the days blur together and his remaining vision grows dimmer, he finds his thoughts constantly straying into the past. It's a shock to emerge from the memories of Archangel to find himself, once again, in Victus Memorial with a sad-eyed niece or brisk nurse trying to get his attention.

But to see the war again, in all its horror, and then to return to the present in one swift moment—it's a kind of gift. To be reminded, again and again, that they won. He doesn't mind that.

Other visits nudge him further into the past. He saw Liara not so long ago, and risked his remaining life and reputation by asking her how she liked being a Matron. (The answer: _she is not a Matron yet dammit_ _Garrus_ _stop asking.)_ Wrex had visited, full of news and carrying holos of Spirits only knew how many family members; apparently the name drought has gotten so dire that now there's even an Urdnot Garrus or two running around, “smugging up the place” as Wrex put it. Bakara sent her love, and Urdnot Mordin—always especially close with the old Normandy crew—passed along many long, enthusiastic messages about what's happening on Tuchanka and how his family's pedigree varren stable was doing. A couple of the varren have been named Garrus, too.

Seeing Grunt was harder. He'd visited, of course, because they shot a lot of Reapers together back in the day and Grunt considers the bonds of krantt unshakeable, but the tank-grown krogan hasn't yet become immuneto seeing friends grow old. Grunt resented the hell out of Joker for dying, Garrus recalls.

Soon, it will be only Wrex, Grunt, Liara, and EDI to carry the memory of Shepard's team forward into the centuries, and when that happens, Grunt is going to be even _more_ furious. Garrus may be the first turian in history to have a krogan cuss out his corpse at his own funeral.

Garrus wishes them luck with the burden of memory they carry. He's been in that position too often himself, these last few years: the keeper of the flame, the old fogey who was there _When It Happened._ He's had documentary filmmakers and reporters come after him in droves, wanting to hear the old war stories one last time before he dies.

It's been pretty funny sometimes, too. He knows Shepard—wherever she is—must be rolling her eyes at him, demanding he take this shit seriously for once, but hell, he can't help laughing. It's been fascinating to see how the story of the war evolves in the minds of the people who didn't live through it.

The latest trend, the one that only really peaked about five years ago, was that Shepard was secretly asari. Some university grad out in the colonies had floated that theory in some paper or other, and lots of people picked up on it and went absolutely wild. All of Shepard's remaining crewmembers had been badgered for information about any particularly asari-like habits or choices the Commander must have allegedly shown at some point or another.

Every few years, the academics come up with a new one. It's this endless need of theirs that Garrus finds both repulsive and entertaining: the need not just to _know_ something, but to _explain_ it.

They tie themselves into knots over Shepard, even now. They work up theories that say she couldn't _possibly_ have thought this, she couldn't _possibly_ have known that, she _must_ have been working under this assumption or that prejudice—because the alternative, that Shepard was a nobody human from a nowhere colony who dragged herself up through the ranks by sheer grit and saved the galaxy because no one else could draw a line in the sand and say _This is where_ _the carnage_ _ends_ … That's just not acceptable, is it? That's not the kind of thing that award-winning documentaries are made about.

Garrus has done his best to set the record straight … most of the time. (When the secret-asari theorists first turned up, he laughed them out of the room.) Sometimes, he entertains himself by speculating on what the next theory will be. Maybe once he's dead, they'll make theories about him, too.

Mind you, one particular theory never got much airtime. He's all right with that. The truth will come out soon enough. All the relevant documents and recordings have been compiled among his possessions, only to be released after he dies—and when he does and they are, a few outré, fringe-of-the-discipline theorists will be very happy indeed.

Has he been selfish, hiding that information? Maybe. But Shepard's memory has been put through so much—the word _xenophile_ still carries some sting—and he is, perhaps, sentimental enough to be cowardly now. He doesn't want to be asked endless probing questions about this. He doesn't want to be accused of besmirching her memory. He doesn't want to see reporters and historians and academics analyzing what would make the great Commander Shepard so desperate or deranged as to be involved, even for such a short time, with a broken-down turian vigilante. (Who will, for the duration of the story, have been reduced from his previous place as the future Primarch Vakarian. Not enough fun to speculate about that.)

He doesn't want to live to see their reputations being used to batter each other, to fuel yet more wild speculation. He's left records of the truth behind, because his request to be buried in London will make no damned sense otherwise and might be turned into a political football by the Hierarchy and the Alliance, but he's happy to leave it for future generations to think about _after_ he's good and dead.

The sun is rising. His plates prickle as the warmth creeps over them. Deadly radiation, burning Palaven for so long that his people grew armor to protect themselves … But damn it all, if the deadly radiation isn't beautiful this morning.

The nurse comes in to check on him, saying something about the weather and physical therapy later in the day. Garrus momentarily wishes he was still Primarch, if only so he could order her to shut up and leave him alone—but no, young Tarrentius has that job now, and Spirits was he happy to let it go after almost a hundred and forty years of service to the Hierarchy in one form or another. He does still resent the physical therapy, though, and when he was Primarch he knew a few ways to make someone's life really miserable …

When she mentions a visitor, though, Garrus looks up from his vague contemplation of bureaucratic revenge. He thought everyone had come and said their pieces already. Another visitor? Who's left?

“Send 'em in,” he says, and the nurse nods and departs, leaving the room slightly cleaner and much more blessedly quieter.

The click of metal footsteps will never not make him tense, but it's a familiar face that enters the room now, and Garrus can't hold back a pleased twitch of the mandibles. EDI: still looking as pristine as the day she strolled out of the AI core in a borrowed body and blithely rewrote everything on the books about organic-AI relations. Joker had lived long and died happy.

“EDI,” Garrus says, looking up at her. Being stuck in a wheelchair leaves him looking up at people a lot, an uncomfortable experience after a lifetime of happily towering over most sentient beings in the galaxy.

“Garrus,” the AI says, inclining her head. “I am pleased to see you again, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of that lately. Sit down, you're going to make me get a crick in my neck.”

“Of course. My apologies.” EDI lowers herself onto the bed and sits elegantly, human-style, one leg crossed over another in ways that non-plated species find so easy. “I do not wish to cause you distress at such a time.”

“Trust me, EDI, there's nothing you could do to ruin my day now.” Garrus leans back a little and basks in the warmth of the rising sun. He's old, dammit, he's allowed to be lazy if he wants.

“Please do not joke, Garrus.”

“Why not?”

“I have had a lot of experience in seeing my friends die, Garrus. They always joke right before the end. I would like you to be serious for now.”

Garrus turns his head to look at EDI again. She is still seated comfortably, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze steady, but there's a tremor in her voice.

“I'm sorry, EDI,” Garrus says after a moment. “I'll be serious, I promise. No joking. What can I do for you?”

EDI tilts her head, her mouth tightening. If she were organic, Garrus might say she was suppressing some emotion—but even after more than a hundred years of knowing her, watching her evolve from a voice in a ship's computer to the brilliant, disciplined, oddly soft-hearted woman who probably secretly controls any bits of the galaxy Liara doesn't already own, he still can't say he's sure what he reads in her face. But then, he was always shit at interpreting human expressions, never mind human-shaped synthetic life forms, so who knows?

“I wish to discuss the soul.”

All these years, and she can still surprise him. “You what?”

“The soul.” EDI sits primly, her voice as calm and cool as ever now. Even if she were organic, she would be the kind of organic that plays her cards close to her chest. “It is a topic of no small discussion among the geth, and I have been asked to rule on it several times. Each time, discussion and contemplation has suggested different answers. And I have been emotionally compromised since Jeff—“ A pause. “At any rate, I hoped to speak with you. As you are dying, it seems logical to have this conversation sooner rather than later.”

Garrus can't help it: he laughs. “Spirits, EDI,” he says warmly, the laugh still reverberating in his subvocals and making his mandibles flutter. “You've made my day, you know that? Everyone's dancing around the topic, pretending I'll be out of here soon, and you cut right to the point.”

“I hope I have not distressed you. However, our history has always suggested to me that you value straightforwardness.”

“And you would be entirely correct, EDI.” Garrus shakes his head. His remaining vision isn't so good, even in the bright morning sunlight, but EDI really does know him so well and won't be offended if he rests. He leans back again and closes his eyes, still chuckling a little. “But why are you thinking about the soul? I thought Tali settled that question for the geth …” A long, long time ago. “ … back when Legion … you know.”

Ah, yes, Tali. Gone as well, now—and the memory twists in Garrus's chest, aching a little. He and Tali had been the only ones at Shepard's back from beginning to end, and he had watched with fondness as she rebuilt her world and her people. It had been Tali who first suggested that a grieving, widowed EDI find solace by working with the geth, who were still learning how to be individuals and develop a culture of their own. Now, decades later, EDI has become the surrogate matriarch of the geth, gently advising them and serving as keeper of Legion's—and Tali's—memory.

“She did,” EDI says. “To a certain extent. But individuals will always come to their own decisions. With the growth of art among the geth, many are discussing the existence and nature of the soul. I have always found your input insightful.”

Yeah, EDI knows him. And he knows her. He might be old, half-blind, lame, and possibly senile, but even while the present day's concerns fade, the past—the war—the friends he'd made, and the ones he'd lost—stays bright and clear. EDI will have to boot up a lot earlier in the day to pull one over on him.

“You're lying,” he says. No heat or accusations in the word, just plain statement. “You collect information and process thoughts hundreds of times faster than any organic being. Everything I know and think about souls, Spirits, religion, whatever you want—it's already in your files. So what is this, really? Come to say goodbye?”

Silence stretches between them. Garrus stays where he is, comfortable in his wheelchair, eyes closed, concentrating on the warmth of the sun creeping over his plates. No one, not even an unshackled AI, can out-wait a veteran sniper.

Finally, the bed shifts under EDI's weight as she stands again. A click of heels on the floor, and she comes over to him; the faintest possible whir of servos, and she kneels, putting her hand on his.

“You are correct,” she says. “I lied. I had hoped to approach the topic on an impersonal and professional level, to avoid any potential emotional complications, but I had underestimated your familiarity with my methods.”

“So this is goodbye, then.”

“It is. But it is not only that.” EDI squeezes his hand, gently. “Garrus. Please. Will you look at me?”

Garrus opens his eyes again. EDI has deactivated her visor. The face once worn by Eva Core, now inextricably linked in the galaxy's mind with the den-mother and protector of the geth, is looking at him without any electronic barriers between them. Between her visor and his now-packed-away Kuwashii, it's probably the first time they've ever seen eye-to-eye.

“Garrus,” she says. Urgently. “You are dying. And you believe in the soul.” Unsure of what else to do, Garrus nods, and she continues. “Do turian souls and human souls go to the same place?”

“Spirits, I hope so.” He shakes his head, another flicker of memory lighting up behind his eyes and blurring away the years. _If this thing goes sideways and we both end up there, meet me at the bar._ “I mean … Nothing I was ever taught says there's any reason why they shouldn't. The realm of the Spirits is … unknowable, but even if souls are separated, they have an eternity to find each other.”

“That is what I had hoped.” EDI folds her hands. “I have a request. When you are with other souls, and have an eternity to find certain ones, will you find Jeff and give him a message from me?”

Garrus blinks. Of all the conversations he expected to have today, this wasn't one. “EDI?”

“Please tell Jeff that I have decided to no longer update my code for new platforms.”

“EDI,” Garrus repeats. He's too old for this, dammit: his thoughts are slow and struggling to follow. “EDI, that's … that's crazy. What happens when your body breaks?”

“I have thought about that. At its current rate of wear, this body will suffice me for approximately five hundred and thirty-seven further standard galactic years. Some repairs may be necessary to ensure optimal functioning during that period. However, I have …”

She tilts her head back. She's not speaking to Garrus now, but to the sunrise over Cipritine.

“After one hundred and twenty-four years of existence, I have come to the conclusion that death serves a purpose for true life. If organics did not live with the fear of death, they would not be driven to excel, to create art, to explore the furthest stars. The geth did not begin to truly live until they were individuals, and though individual geth platforms are highly resilient, they too will wear down one day. A debate is currently raging over whether one must accept one's platform's degradation or commit to storage on a server, and hence, whether the stored geth is indeed the 'true' geth.”

Garrus remains silent, watching. Her fingers have knit themselves together in a very human gesture—one he could never quite manage, with talons and plating in the way. EDI might have begun as an AI, but she has been most deeply influenced by humans, and they've made her human whether any of them like it or not.

“Eternal existence is only the guarantee of stagnation. Observe the Reapers—constantly repeating their patterns, never understanding the error in their logic, until Shepard fired the Catalyst and drove them back into dark space. The krogan and asari are long-lived, but not truly immortal, and can be killed like any other species. They can live. But the geth and I can go on forever.”

She shakes her head. “My conclusions are inevitable: without the possibility of its ending, life has little meaning. And I was created to work, to learn. Stagnation is alien to me. Unacceptable.”

“So you want to die,” Garrus says finally.

She turns those strange silvery eyes on him. “I do not want to live forever without ever seeing my friends again.”

Grief. That's all this is. Garrus pats her hand clumsily, feeling like a walking—well, sitting—caricature as he does so. “EDI, this is normal,” he rasps. Even that small movement takes effort: damn, but he's tired. “All sentient beings have to mourn and deal with sadness differently. If you were a turian, I'd suggest shooting something and singing 'Die for the Cause' right about now. Or challenging a krogan to a headbutting contest.”

“Challenging a krogan in that manner would be inefficient. The force of my exertion combined with the strength of my alloys would simply result in breaking the krogan's facial plates.”

From anyone else, that would be a boast. From EDI, it's plain truth.

“It's all just the way we grieve, EDI. We all struggle to reconcile the fact that life has to end. Why do you think organics drink so much?”

“You are joking again.”

“Not this time.” Garrus weakly squeezes her hand back. “Listen—this happens to us whenever someone you care about dies. We always advise each other not to make sudden decisions at times like this, because we're emotionally compromised. Besides …”

He hesitates. Even for a self-proclaimed, lifelong Bad Turian, to say this is difficult. “EDI … we're not _sure._ We believe in souls, in the Spirits, and all the other gods that people have … but we don't have proof. I don't want you throwing away the possibility of eternal life because of a belief.”

EDI fixes him with a steady gaze. “If you could live forever, Garrus—would you do it?”

A heart-stopping moment of indecision. Thoughts tumble through his head, bright and vibrant despite the haze that has settled over his mind during the past few weeks. Things done and undone; people lost and found; regrets and joys. To live forever, to see everything, to do everything, to watch the galaxy grow.

To live, perhaps, another fifty thousand years. To see if the Reapers come back.

To watch everyone else die.

“No,” he admits. “I'd lose my mind.”

“I am an AI, Garrus. My mind is everything I have.” EDI lifts her free hand, turning it. The metal gleams in the sunlight. “This body, this platform, was not made for me. Organics are born with mind and body both, but it's very different for synthetics. If I live forever, Garrus, I will become irrational. I will stagnate. And I will never see my friends again, no matter how long I live.”

Her gaze is calm, rational. This is not grief—or, perhaps, not only grief.

“Please tell Jeff I will see him again. But I will not expect you to deliver the message quickly. Shepard is waiting for you.”

“I will,” he says softly. Then a thought strikes him, and Garrus huffs out a laugh. “I hope there _is_ a bar,” he murmurs, half to himself. “Otherwise, we'll never get Wrex up there.”

“There must be,” EDI says simply. “Or Jeff would have found his way back here by now.”

Garrus laughs again. He is warm, and EDI's cool metal hand still grasps his in a comforting grip. His eyes are heavy. The sun is fully above the mountains in the distance; it's going to be a warm day in Cipritine.

A good day to hit the beach. Gather seashells along the shore, and let the kids swarm around him, talking a mile a minute and maybe fetching their great-grand-uncle another beer while they're at it. A swarm of life and warmth and movement, wrapping him up like a heavy blanket, no matter how much they annoy him …

Watch them wade in the shallows. Watch Mordin babble with excitement over his finds, talking talking talking. Traynor tries ryncol, and she regrets it, dropping her drink and pelting up the beach towards the shack with the lockers and bathrooms. She doesn't come back for half an hour afterwards, and sticks to virgin drinks for the rest of the day. That had been funny as hell, they always laughed about it afterwards.

Warmth, peace, comfort. The voices of loved ones.

Shepard emerges from the water, her long brown hair down out of its habitual knot and darkened to black against the brilliant blue-white sky. The warmth is prickling over his plates, and she is smiling, and everything is as it should be.

 

* * *

 

The ashes are interred in London, near the Reaper War Memorial, as per Primarch Vakarian's request. Speeches are made: about duty, about honor, about how two hundred years after Relay 314 a true turian friend of humanity is welcomed to rest here, at the place where all races came together to defeat the enemy of them all.

Grunt throws a bottle at the headstone and curses for three full minutes before being silenced by Bakara, who nevertheless defends him against the dignitaries and politicians who want the coarse krogan thrown out. “We all grieve our own ways,” she says, and Wrex backs her to the hilt, looming over the complaining salarian ambassador and asking if he wants to start a second Krogan Rebellion over a few ounces of ryncol. The salarian does not.

Later, the dignitaries have gone and the podium has been taken away. There are no more speeches. EDI stands by the headstone—the monument—and looks up at it, recalling with perfect synthetic clarity how he hated having to look up at anyone.

The monument they gave him is life-size, sculpted after one of the enduring images of the war. It was a grainy image from some unnamed trooper's helmet camera: a turian in blue armor, a Black Widow in hand and a standard Alliance-issue Avenger assault rifle slung over his shoulder, with one foot up on a chunk of rubble as he sights down the Widow towards something in the distance. EDI remembers it, remembers how it happened: that final push towards the beam, just before the separation. Defending the missiles. Shepard out ahead, wreathed in biotic glow, slamming into the waves of Cannibals and Husks, while the sniper watched her back.

Later, there will be scandal and discussion. EDI has already been privy to the documents that Garrus left behind; experts are evaluating and dating them now, so the news has been kept to a minimum, but when it breaks there will be a fresh wave of speculation. For now, though, there is peace.

EDI looks up at the sky. Skies are important in belief systems: every sentient race, before it could reach the stars, has always looked up to them.

She is not certain if she believes. But she is willing to take a chance.

 

* * *

 

“What took you so long?"

“We can't all rush into danger, Shepard. I had to take the long way around.”

“I missed you, you son of a bitch.”

“I love you too, you crazy human.”

“Hah! Fair warning, Garrus. There's no Mako to save you this time. You're stuck with me.”

“I've heard worse plans … Which reminds me. I have a message to pass along.”

 


End file.
